About the Book
In the chronicled history of Ahmedabad, there is a tale of a Malik of the Gujarat Sultanate who retired early, simply to stay close to his garden. He chose to spend the remainder of his life there and was eventually buried in that very garden. This is merely one of the many stories that have come up during the course of this exploration, reminding us that gardens are more than just a carefully crafted combination of plant material, water features, walkways and seating spaces. They are a cultural consequence layered with meaning, acting as palimpsests of the city’s identity, while also being transient and temporal.
“There are many Gardens in Ahmedabad; and are so full of Trees, that when one looks upon that Town from a high place, it seems to be a Forest of green Trees…“
— in Indian Travels of Thevenot and Careri: Being the Third Part of the Travels of Jean De Thevent…
Alluded to as a city of gardens so abundant that it appeared as “one big garden,” Ahmedabad’s garden legacy remains surprisingly under-documented. Once a repository of culture and leisure, most of these spaces have faded into obscurity, leaving only faint echoes in historical records and collective memory.
This study intends to bring such forgotten spaces to life and show how gardens, through changing ideas and meanings, reflect the city’s layered history. As a historically significant mercantile and economic centre, Ahmedabad is riddled with stories of social, political, and communal strife, natural calamities, experiments with self-governance, and the influence of colonial interventions that were quite unique to this city.
Several consequential events have contributed to the transformation of Ahmedabad’s gardens: the diffusion of external ideas, the rise of textile mills, the emergence of an urban elite, colonial infrastructure, the city becoming the first capital of the independent state of Gujarat, and the forces of cosmopolitanism. Through this study, we seek to understand how such events shaped the city’s gardens, and in turn, how gardens reveal Ahmedabad’s enduring relationship with nature.
To pursue this inquiry is to look not only at gardens for their form and aesthetic, but also at the complex interplay between human behaviour, cultural expression, and spatial design. They must be treated as evolving forms, continuously shaped by and reflective of the evolution of society at large.
The Garden Histories of Ahmedabad is an investigation into this potential of garden space as vessels of socio-cultural memory, as spaces that hold within them the shifting tides of power, society, and identity.
This endeavour was instigated by a desire to look back into the story of Ahmedabad for a record of gardens. We began by looking at accounts of various travellers, starting from Alberuni in the 11th century, to French, Portuguese, Dutch and English travellers in subsequent time periods.
Although these accounts often carry culture biases of their authors, in most cases they provide the on glimpses available of gardens now lost. Complementing these narratives is an extensive cross-referencing of multiple sources, ranging from literature, archival sources and art, to first-hand documentation and oral narratives.
What do we mean by a ‘garden’?
Our approach for this study extends beyond formal, curated garden landscapes. We also intend to include spaces that may not traditionally be categorised as gardens, but still represent ‘human interventions in natural landscapes with an underlying sense of purpose or rituals!
This broadens our scope to include orchards, temple and house courtyards, roadside plantations, and other functionally devised spaces. Though not always conforming to strict garden design conventions, these carry cultural, ecological, and historical significance that is inseparable from Ahmedabad’s evolving landscape. Ultimately, as the research progresses, it seeks to uncover and incorporate multiple interpretations of what constitutes a garden within the city’s context.
As these aspects are investigated, a set of questions guides us:
What were the ideas behind the making of gardens?
Who made them, and who used them?
What sets a garden apart from the others that were made at the same time, or for the same reason?
What are the memories that people associate with a garden?
How have some of these gardens survived the passage of time?
How have they been repurposed or reconditioned?
And most importantly, what is the legacy they leave behind?
A Note for the Readers
The Garden Histories of Ahmedabad is not your typical academic book. It is written for anyone curious about the city and its stories. It looks at gardens as emblems of power, societal desire, and of shifting urban, social, and ecological values. It examines how these garden spaces and their ideas transformed with time and power. In doing so, it provokes a new way of experiencing the story of Ahmedabad anew.
Each garden stands on its own. Open any page, pick a garden, and you can begin. You’ll find context, references, and visual cues that lead you to other gardens. The writing is accessible and engaging, the format intuitive, and the structure almost encyclopaedic in nature.
The book weaves together anecdotes, travel accounts, small discoveries, and archival fragments into a narrative that is both informative and enjoyable, allowing both casual readers and academics to navigate it with ease. The adjoining notes make complex ideas simple, suitable for anyone who wants to read in depth without feeling overwhelmed.
In addition, it is as visual as it is textual: featuring over 50 interpretive illustrations, 45 photographs, and around 40 archival images (including maps), carefully selected to trace how these spaces emerged and transformed with time.
Reflective, vivid, and deeply local, it is a book to read slowly, to return to often, and to share with those who find joy in cities, stories, and the beauty of nature.
About Landscape Environment Advancement Foundation (LEAF)
LEAF, the not-for-profit research arm for M/s Prabhakar B. Bhagwat, was founded in 2007 by Prof. Prabhakar B. Bhagwat, India’s first qualified Landscape Architect. In the nearly 2 decades since the Foundation has been active, it has worked towards the demonstration of two ideas—the first being that design cannot be undertaken in silos—but rather must be informed and supported by context, and the second that the idea of the profession must expand beyond practice to create spaces that allow for dialogue, conversation, and reflection.
The work that the Foundation does is expressed in one of the following ways: its on-ground initiatives, the lectures and webinars that it hosts, the public-facing tool-kits that it develops, and publications such as these that it puts out. Its undertakings are focused within the areas of Plant Material and Landscape Design, Urbanity, Art, Public Spaces, and more.
For more information about the book, click here.
To connect with us, write to info@leaf-india.org
